NBCU News Group’s digital properties reached an average of 143 million monthly unique visitors for Q3

NBC News NOW launches first primetime streaming program, Top Story with Tom Llamas

CNBC announced Jim Cramer has signed a multi-platform deal with the network

TODAY’s Hoda Kotb releases new original podcast, Making Space

October 18, 2021 – NBCU News Group (NBC News, TODAY, MSNBC and CNBC) ranks as the #1 news organization for 3Q21 in the U.S., with an average of 143 million monthly unique visitors. The News Group also continues to rank as #1 in total video minutes watched, total video starts and video viewers for the quarter to-date with an average of more than 60 million monthly video viewers, 415 million monthly views and 1.8 billion monthly minutes watched. 

In September, the News Group ranked among the top news organizations, with 137 million unique visitors, beating ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Times and Washington Post. 

CNBC Digital is the #1 non-portal brand in Business News for unique visitors and ranked number one in Business News video with 17 million unique video viewers, holding the top position for eight consecutive months. CNBC live blogs also saw its strongest month since the beginning of 2021, led by coverage of Apple and Amazon events as well as a recent SpaceX launch.

MSNBC Daily has reached record-setting traffic for the past five months since launching. MSNBC.com also launched The ReidOut Blog last month, which has brought in more than 2.3 million page views since launch. MSNBC unique visitors increased by 29% vs. the same month last year, with increased audiences on platforms such as Apple News. MSNBC video time spent per viewer ranks ahead of CNN.com for the sixth month in a row (30 minutes vs. 26).

TODAY Digital has reached more than 50M unique visitors for ten of the last eleven months. TODAY also continues to rank among the top 10 entities in the Lifestyle category for video views and minutes and ranks among the top 5 entities for video viewers (August 2021). 

NBCU News Group’s streaming services, TODAY All Day and NBC News NOW, had top months, with NBC News NOW seeing 65 million live video views and nearly 20 million hours watched live, up +138% year-to-date in 2021 over the same time frame in 2020. It was the streaming platform’s best September ever, with viewers on average watching for nearly an hour at a time on OTT platforms. 

Top Story with Tom Llamas launched on NBC News NOW as the first primetime show on the streaming network, with the time slot increasing by double digits in premier week and full episode views across platforms seeing strong consumption. The show provides a comprehensive and dynamic playlist of the day’s biggest news and taps into NBC News’ unparalleled original journalism and access to reporters and correspondents all over the world. The high-energy program gives an overview of the day’s breaking and most important news, as well as explores stories on race, social justice, personal finance and more, with a strong emphasis on issues affecting Hispanic Americans. 

Meet The Press Reports returned for a third season on NBC News NOW in September. The season has already driven the program’s strongest week ever on Peacock, led by the first two episodes of the season. Anchored by NBC News Political Director and Meet the Press Moderator Chuck Todd,  the once-weekly 30-minute program breaks down a single topic explored through the Meet the Press lens and utilizes experts and the full breadth of NBC News reporters in the field. Along with the season premiere, Meet the Press Reports launched a new weekly newsletter dedicated to a deeper dive into the weekly episode topics.

NBC News NOW also hosted two specials: Generation LatinX, a one-hour special for Hispanic Heritage month on the Latino experience in America, hosted by NBC News’ Morgan Radford; Return to Broadway, a special on the industry’s reopening, hosted by NBC News’ Joe Fryer.

CNBC premiered a digital original documentary, America’s Climate Crisis: Living In Harm’s Way, explaining how climate change is wreaking havoc on American homes and what people are trying to do to protect themselves and their homes. Viewers can watch the documentary on CNBC.com, YouTube and Peacock.

TODAY All Day saw its strongest month on record in September. The past three months have been the streaming channel’s strongest months to-date after launching last summer. 

September was the News Group’s strongest month ever for podcast downloads with more than 62M global podcast downloads, up +37% vs. the prior year. It was also one of the News Group’s top listener months on record, continuing to rank in the top ten of all podcast publishers in the US, up +14% versus September 2020. 

TODAY podcasts had their best months ever, up +81% vs. September 2020. Dateline podcasts also reached a record 36M podcast downloads, up +83% vs. the prior year, fueled by the show’s 30th anniversary. The show has reached more than 480M podcast downloads since its launch. 

TODAY launched a new podcast – Making Space with Hoda Kotb – which focuses on the importance of “making space” in life to find happiness. Each week, Kotb hears from inspiring guests who share personal stories of perseverance and triumph. Recent guests have included Oprah, Maria Shriver and Anne Lamott. 

NBC News’ recent #1 podcast, Southlake, published their final episode and has seen more than 3 million downloads since launch. Available wherever you get your podcasts, audiences can listen to all episodes now. Learn more at NBCNews.com/Southlake. 

In September, CNBC announced Jim Cramer signed a multi-platform deal with the network, bringing all of his media assets under the CNBC umbrella. As part of that agreement, Cramer will publish articles and videos each day, sharing his thoughts on the markets and trading for all of CNBC’s digital products and services. 

In addition, CNBC will work with Cramer Digital on an exclusive investor-focused subscription product, CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, equipping members with Cramer’s unparalleled knowledge and analysis of portfolio management and investing and give behind-the-scenes access to Cramer and his team. 

Shortly after announcing the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, the newsletter has recorded more than 300,000 sign ups within a few weeks, making it CNBC’s second largest newsletter ever. For more information about the new product, go to: cnbc.com/investingclub.

*Sources: Comscore Media Metrix (July – September 2021) & Comscore Video Metrix (July & August 2021), U.S. desktop internet population 2+ and mobile internet population 13+ years old, Custom-Defined List, Based on NBCU News entity compared to a custom list of brand competitors that are also in the News/Information Category. Adobe Analytics & Partner Dashboards, Cross-Platform Global Data, September 2021. Podtrac, Total Mobile and Desktop US Audience and Global Downloads, September 2021.  

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For more information, contact: 

Emily Passer
NBC News Digital
Emily.Passer@nbcuni.com

Claudia Meyer-Samargia
NBC News Digital
Claudia.MeyerSamargia@nbcuni.com